


Northern Downpour

by sconelover



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Also Ebb is alive, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apparently this is an epic political AU now, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Everything is cozy and soft, Explorations of Simon's magic, Falling In Love, Goats, Light Vampirism Angst, Like wayyy back canon divergence, M/M, Non-Watford AU, Northern Lights, Norway (Country), Simon never went to Watford, Snowy Vibes, Strangers to Lovers, There's a café, Winter, magical au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29537607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sconelover/pseuds/sconelover
Summary: Undredal is a charming village. Nestled among the remote fjordlands of Norway, surrounded by steep cliffs and glassy water, it’s like something out of a fairytale. (One could even call it magical.)But Undredal has been harbouring a big secret—and it’s not the amazing goat cheese.Baz Pitch doesn’t know it, but he’s about to find out what it is.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 48
Kudos: 61
Collections: Snowbaz Sweethearts Fic Exchange 2021





	1. Undredal, Norway

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arcanine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/gifts).



> Dear [arcanine,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanine/pseuds/arcanine)  
> Happy Snowbaz Sweethearts exchange! ❤️ I'm so sorry about your original partner, but I hope this fic can bring a smile to your face. You are a wonderful writer and such a lovely, positive person, and you deserve the world—though the most I can offer is pretty words. (And some music to go with it—check out the playlist [here.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1pb1LovoeBLKKb3hYhLPpp?si=3d11e7a748ac45c7)) Hope you like it!
> 
> Thanks so much to [NineMagicks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NineMagicks/pseuds/NineMagicks) for beta reading, [Ash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Honeyed_Hufflepuff/pseuds/The_Honeyed_Hufflepuff) for cheerleading, and [Mio](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/augustslaundry) for Norway-picking!
> 
> This work will have 8-10 chapters and will update ~twice a week! ❤️

****

**Simon**

Sometimes, life here feels like a series of in-betweens. 

Moments in between moments. The time between days. The days between seasons. Limbos between here and there; they stretch on longer here. 

Sometimes it feels like that’s all we get, up here. That feeling of not-quite-there. That feeling of whatever you’re looking for being on the tip of your tongue.

Or maybe it’s not just here; maybe that feeling is everywhere. Maybe I’m not the only one who constantly feels like I’m trapped in time, constantly on the brink of something.

It’s not a bad thing, the timelessness of this place. 

Sometimes it feels like magic.

* * *

**Baz**

I am sick and tired of fucking _London._

Everywhere I go I’m surrounded by delicious bags of blood, a bouquet for the senses. Warm and sweet, brimming under the surface.

It’s overwhelming. And as I grow older, it has—counterintuitively—gotten harder to resist. It’s almost as bad as when I came into my bloodlust, when I was fourteen. 

Before, people felt like something I could walk away from. Something to which there were alternatives. Like a buffet—tempting, but feasibly deniable. I kept to myself at school, fed on forest creatures and Catacomb rats. 

But now… now, I feel like an alcoholic at an open-bar party.

I feel like a child who already has one hand in the biscuit tin. 

A month ago, I met someone at a bar and almost went home with him until I realised what I was thinking. What my _body_ was thinking, without my permission.

(Not like _that.)_

My fangs drop and I can barely hold them back. The vampire part of my brain takes over—single-minded, animalistic. Something base and hungry.

To be ruled so easily by something out of my control is terrifying.

I don’t know what would happen, if I drank from a human. If it would kill them. Or worse—Turn them. 

Drinking from a squirrel or deer helps. But it’s more than I needed before. (I’m single-handedly collapsing the ecosystems of London’s public parks.)

And it never lasts. Not for a few days, like it used to. I went out shopping yesterday and almost passed out from trying not to breathe in too deeply. (I had to cast a **_Coming up for air_** on myself when I got home.)

I don’t know what is happening. 

_(No one_ knows what’s happening. There never was a book for this… _The Body Book for Teenage Vampire Mages? Congratulations, You Survived Vampire Puberty: Now What?)_

So I’ve shut myself in my flat, set my groceries for delivery, and am frantically Googling remote places to move that have an _ounce_ of magic in them.

I just don’t trust myself around this many people anymore. 

* * *

**Simon**

I was born in England. Or Wales, I think. I’m not really sure. 

All I know is that something strange happened when I was eleven years old. 

I woke up from a nightmare with magic flooding out of me, bursting out of every pore. The care home had gone up in flames, and everyone had ended up streets away. I didn’t know it was magic, then; I thought I was on fire, too.

But Ebb says she felt it—felt a sparking in her bones, like something had rippled through the Magickal atmosphere. She tracked me like I was the epicenter of an earthquake.

And we ran.

I once asked her why. I was sleepy, full on too many butter biscuits, and she was knitting something made of fluffy white yarn. (Probably another one of her ridiculously oversized poncho-garments that she likes to call ‘jumpers.’)

It must have been a year since she adopted me. (Or rather, stole me.) (But I couldn’t complain—it was much better than whatever the alternative would have been.)

“Powerful people like you and me,” she said, “everyone wants to _use_ us.” She put her knitting down and stared into the hearth. The fire was dying down, and she set the logs alight again with a simple nudge of her staff.

“For what?”

She shook her head. “I hope you’ll never get to know firsthand. There was a war… _is_ a war. It’s nonsense, the lot of it.”

“Did they want to use _you?”_

“Someone wise once told me power doesn’t have to be a burden. That being powerful doesn’t have anything to do with what you do with your life.” She smiled at me, a little sadly. “I’d say you’ll understand when you’re older, but maybe you won’t have to.”

“I won’t?”

“We’re _mages,_ Simon. And mages like to spout a whole lot of cock-and-bull about destiny. But no child should have to be a soldier.”

“Do I have a destiny?” I asked.

Ebb nodded. “I’d’ve said it was none of my business, that—but then I overheard what was planned.”

I learned the full story later. I never did fulfill the destiny that was set for me.

And I’m more than okay with that.

* * *

**Baz**

_chrome://history_

Today - Monday, January 18, 2021

12:04 PM remote towns in england - Google Search www.google.co.uk

12:05 PM Rural places to live in Britain: 50 of the best | BT www.home.bt.com

12:07 PM should I move to wales - Google Search www.google.co.uk

12:08 PM moving to wales from london - Google Search www.google.co.uk

12:08 PM 20 Reasons You Should Move to Wales Immediately www.metro.co.uk

12:09 PM Scared about being a London Guy www.reddit.com

12:11 PM 26 things English people learn when they move to Wales www.walesonline.co.uk

12:13 PM Why you should move to Wales right now www.visitwales.co.uk

12:14 PM places to move that AREN’T wales - Google Search www.google.co.uk

12:14 PM Living the Welsh Life: 6 Best Places to Live in Wales | Lifestyle www.blog.sfgate.com

12:15 PM for fucks sake - Google Search www.google.co.uk

12:16 PM where are the most deer - Google Search www.google.co.uk

12:17 PM Deer - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org

12:18 PM Red Deer - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org

12:21 PM (PDF) Red deer population and harvest changes in Europe www.researchgate.net

12:27 PM rural areas of europe - Google Search www.google.co.uk

12:28 PM magickal communities in rural europe - Google Search www.google.co.uk

12:28 PM Witchcraft and Magic in 16th and 17th Century… www.theguardian.co.uk

12:35 PM best places for vampires to live - Google Search www.google.co.uk

12:37 PM Fangtastic! The world’s best vampire-spotting locations | CNN www.cnn.com

12:38 PM why did I think this would work - Google Search www.google.co.uk

* * *

**Baz**

Fiona’s not happy. 

I can tell by the way she’s tapping her fingernails on the counter; alternating between that and scrabbling for her pocket, as if she’ll find a lone cigarette there. _(Spoiler alert, Fi: they hang out in packs.)_

I’m standing three feet away from her, because the smell of her blood—usually unnoticeable to me—is prominent today. I’ve lit her big lavender candle to mask it, but I can still sense it, like something spicy wafting in the air, making my nostrils sting.

“I don’t know, boyo.” She frowns. “Most of the vampires I know live in major cities, and they do just fine.”

I groan. “Fi, they live in major cities because they _eat people.”_

“Minor details.” Her eyes light up. “Wait, have you ever even tried drinking from a human?”

“Crowley, _no!”_

“I’m not gonna report you—”

“I’m serious,” I growl. “I would never. I’m not a _murderer.”_

“It just seems to be what your body’s telling you!”

“My body tells me plenty of things,” I deadpan, “and I manage to resist.”

“So _that’s_ why you’re not getting laid.”

“Fiona!”

She laughs and shakes her head. “Well, if you’re serious—” She flips open her laptop and pulls up Google Maps. “There are Magickal communities, here, here—” She points out several spots in the north of England. “But there are still a lot of people around there, so that the magic stays strong. Honestly, I don’t think you’ll find a real rural area that _does_ have magic anywhere in Britain.”

I sit down heavily on one of her teetering barstools. “Somewhere else, then.”

“What are you, Edward Cullen? Running away to Alaska so you don’t drain anyone?”

I grit my teeth. “If you must compare me to that sparkly abomination—yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

She rolls her eyes. 

“Though somewhere a bit closer than Denali National Park would be preferable,” I add.

She stares at the map, deep in thought for a moment, fingernails _tap-tapping_ on the marble. Then she zooms out. “I have a friend,” she finally says.

The way she says _friend_ makes me think it’s one of her exes.

“Normal?”

“No.” Fiona smiles wryly. “One of the most powerful mages I ever met, actually. You’re not supposed to know this—hell, _I’m_ not supposed to know this—but she lives… there.” Fiona zooms in to some random spot in southwestern Norway; a tiny town along the water called Undredal. “Nothing there but goats. And magic,” she says, turning to me with narrowed eyes. “Buckets of it.”

I stare at the town—a blip among endless greens and a winding fjord. “Why aren’t we supposed to know?” I ask.

“She has a secret,” Fiona says. “A big. Fucking. Secret.”

* * *

**Simon**

The days are short this time of year.

I always wake up early, even when it’s dark. (Force of habit, from Ebb.) (From the goats, incessant little bastards.)

It was cheery during Christmastime at least. And even if the sun only shows itself for a few hours, the town’s still draped with lights and decorations that we haven’t bothered to take down. Ebb’s cafe sits on the main street of Undredal, which also happens to be the only street. (I mean, there are a _few_ other streets, but they just lead out of town.) 

It’s snowing something wicked, but I live two minutes away from the café—I don’t even bother to button my coat, just jog off down the road. 

It’s a quiet life, but I like it. I know the coffee orders of everyone from town, and I love working at the café. (Especially since our dishes do themselves, by magic). 

You’d think the new highway and the hordes of tourists in the summer would change everything, but people are tied to traditional ways of life here. They’re tied to the land.

Ebb loves it. She leans into it. She wakes up at four every morning to milk the goats.

I think this is one of those places people don’t quite believe still exists.

One of those places that hasn’t quite caught up with the rest of the world.

That seems to be just a little trapped in time.

I like it. There’s a strange comfort in knowing how far removed we are. There’s people in this town who have never known anything else, but Ebb and I _have—_ and we still love it here. We like it better than anywhere else.

The problems most people face just don’t reach us here. (And we’re hyper-aware that our biggest problems could be life and death. We could be fighting a war.) (As it is, our biggest problems are misbehaving goats, the threat of being trampled by reindeer, and the occasional battle with the Wi-Fi.) 

I’m trailing magic when I walk among the Christmas decorations. I let some of it float off the surface of my skin and melt into the dark sky, sending even more lights spinning above my head. They hover between the houses and shops like little stars.

It feels good when I let it out. It’s a relief. It’s always malevolent when it’s inside me, like a storm in a glass jar.

The town is silent, save for the bleating of a few goats and sheep in the distance. No one’s out and about yet. I unlock the café, even though I won’t have any customers for hours.

The goats roam free along the fjords in the summers, grazing on the steep grassy hills. During the winters, Ebb spends half the morning feeding and taking care of them before she comes in. When it’s cold, they all huddle together in the barn—it’s dead cute.

I think this town has 100 people and 500 goats.

I peel off my coat and start the coffee machine. Crossing to the hearth, I press my palm to the fresh wood there. I almost set this place alight once, but it’s getting better nowadays. I close my eyes and focus on the magic flowing out of me—I picture it convincing the wood to catch fire. Working _with_ the wood, rather than against it.

And it does. (Without sending the café up in flames, thank magic.)

While the coffee brews, I walk around and try to light all the candles with the tip of my finger. (Another thing I’ve been working on, though it rarely works—Ebb’s shit with fire magic, so she can’t teach me.) 

I end up just getting the lighter out.

Coffee mug in hand, I settle in my spot by the window. In a little while, I’ll get to watch the morning light touch down on the fjord as the sun rises. It sets the whole place sparkling. It’s breathtaking, every time.

Things don’t change much around here, but I don’t wish for a different life. (Just for someone to share it with.) 

Today feels different though. Strange.

There’s an unfamiliar magic in the air—an unfamiliar tugging in my gut, right behind my navel. 

* * *

**Baz**

The World of Mages is full of superstition and prophecy.

For some reason, as I pack my suitcase, I’m thinking about the lost Chosen One. 

There’s a prickling to the air today, and it feels auspicious, if you believe in that sort of thing. Fiona likes to feed me gibberish about _magickal alignment._ (Apparently the sun moves into Aquarius today.) But maybe it is true—people always say their magic feels more powerful during certain parts of the year.

A Greatest Mage was prophesied, long ago. There’s a nursery rhyme: 

_And one will come to end us._ _  
_ _And one will bring his fall._ _  
_ _Let the greatest power of powers reign,_ _  
_ _May it save us all._

People had given up on the prophecy, assuming it was just a myth. But twenty-three years ago, a hole appeared in the magickal atmosphere—devoid of all magic. The feeling was coined by a scientist: _an insidious humdrum, a mundanity that creeps into your very soul._

I’ve always loved the phrase. It’s properly dark.

The World of Mages took the hole as an ominous sign. 

The holes continued in small bursts until 2008… when the Magickal atmosphere lit up like a Christmas tree.

I was too young to feel it, but my father keeled over like he’d been punched in the stomach. Fiona said she nearly steered her car off a bridge.

And the biggest hole opened, over Lancashire. Penelope Bunce once told our Magickal History class about how her father visited as part of his research, and it was dead—no magic. Just a dry, sucking feeling to the air, like a sandstorm. 

Everyone believed it was a precursor to the Chosen One finally arriving. The Humdrum was theorised to be something sentient, something that was a threat to all of magic. 

The Greatest Mage would finally come and destroy it. Save us, save magic.

But after that day, the holes stopped. _Everything_ stopped. 

When I was at Watford, the Mage told anyone who would listen (and many who wouldn’t) that there was still a Chosen One coming to save us. He called him Simon Snow. 

(It sounds like a fairytale name to me. Like something made up to tell stories to children at night.) 

And he never did show up. The Mage said he was stolen, that night—he says that day in 2008 was when he came into his magic. It’s all bullshit and propaganda. Most people don’t believe in The Chosen One anymore, even those that do support The Mage; there’s no proof.

And no one that powerful—powerful enough to electrify the magickal atmosphere—has ever lived.

I zip my suitcase, load my plane tickets onto my phone, and slip my wand up my jumper sleeve. If the Chosen One really did exist, he’d have been my year in school. Would he have gone to Watford, I wonder? (He’d have been The Mage’s pet, I know it—I would have antagonised him.)

Anyway, The Humdrum, or whatever it was, is gone now. 

We don’t need saving anymore.

* * *

**Simon**

As the sun starts to rise and the snow calms down, I can see Ebb out on the hill from my spot by the window. The top of her staff is glowing bright blue, and I can barely make out a shimmery haze around her—a bubble of warmth. The snow has melted away around her feet to reveal the grass.

She rounds up a goat that must’ve run away, then trots back down the hill. 

I press my coffee mug between my hands to warm it up. If I focus, channeling my magic cleanly, it’s steaming in an instant. 

I’m getting better at that. (I’ve shattered a _lot_ of mugs in the past.) (Ebb puts them back, though. A quick flick of her staff and they’re **_good as new.)_ **

I don’t have a staff. I don’t have anything, but I don’t think I need it—I tried using Ebb’s staff once, and it felt like trying to force a river through a pinhole. Ebb’s powerful, nearly as powerful as me, though she’ll never admit that much—but even then, it just didn’t work.

Something’s different about my magic. It doesn’t like to be channeled—and I’ve tried every Magickal artifact I could get my hands on—it just likes to be let _off._ To go places and create things, but never obey direction.

I’ve made peace with it. I can _do_ magic—warm things up, make lights or snow, grow flowers, heal people and animals. I can Speak with magic, sometimes without even trying. I have outlets, here; I’ve never gone off again, not like I did all those years ago in Lancashire.

Ebb used to live at Watford, so she’s taught me everything she knows about a formal Magickal education—which is a lot. She gets news from there, too, so we’re up to date. I guess it should make me nostalgic, but hearing how raving mad the Mage was when I disappeared didn’t exactly make me eager to visit. 

I would have graduated almost five years ago, now, had I gone.

But I think I would have been dead before then. That’s what Ebb’s convinced of, anyway, and I trust her; she’s wise, and she has an intuition for these sorts of things.

(I’m also convinced I wouldn’t have passed any of my classes.)

The door to the café opens with a _whoosh,_ even though no one pushed it, and I spring up. A moment later, a tall blonde woman sweeps in, long coat billowing behind her. She waves her hand, where she wears a gold cuff on her wrist, and the door slams shut.

 _“God morgen,_ Simon.”

 _“Hei,_ Astrid.” I hop behind the counter and start the sputtering coffee machine again. “The usual?”

“Please.”

A chair pulls itself out for Astrid to sit down in, then slides forward of its own accord. I set her coffee on the counter instead of bringing it over, and she rolls her eyes knowingly at me. 

“Must I do all the work?”

“I like to see your party tricks.”

She waves her hand again, and the coffee floats across the café without spilling a drop and lands gently in front of her.

Right, so Undredal just has one secret—it’s full of magicians.


	2. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half the story. (Half the truth.)

**Baz  
**

Sogndal isn’t an airport. (Not in my books, at least.) The tarmac is a narrow strip of concrete that resembles a splintered twig from the air. It’s little more than a couple of homely buildings nestled among trees and mountains—uncertainly, as if they’re not sure they’re supposed to be standing there.

I connected through Bergen, which already seems miniscule in comparison to London. So Undredal must be terrifying. (Terrifyingly small, that is.) (Wikipedia informed me that the town wasn’t even accessible by road until 1988. You had to take a fucking  _ boat.)  _

Ebb, Fiona’s “friend,” apparently doesn’t have a mobile phone number (she communicates with Fiona by _ bird, _ and less frequently, email), but she does have a café. I don’t even have an address for it, because it’s the  _ only  _ fucking café in Undredal.

I’m just here for a week or so to scope it out—see if it’s actually somewhere I could live. See if it actually  _ helps  _ with… all the vampire stuff. 

(What my family doesn’t know is that I already packed up my flat.) (And that the suitcases I brought can last me six months.)

Most of the signs are in Norwegian, but the car rental is easy to find. I rent a BMW (the  _ only _ BMW) and pray to Merlin I have enough signal for Google Maps. 

I finally unravel my scarf with a sigh of relief. I had to wear it wrapped around my nose and mouth on the plane; even then, my gums itched terribly. I take a deep breath of crisp, cold air. I’m  _ thirsty— _ I’ll have to stop to hunt before I get to Undredal.

The map says highway, though I think this one-lane road doesn’t meet the legal requirements for  _ highway _ —but  _ Crowley,  _ it’s gorgeous. There’s not a soul in sight, and I’m surrounded by frost-coated trees and lightly falling snow. It feels like driving into something mythical—the road could drop off into the clouds and I wouldn’t be surprised.

It’s so starkly different from everything I’ve ever known. 

The sky is white-blue and endless overhead. The trees are a vibrant green and stretch on forever. I cross a bridge half an hour into my journey and have to pull over just to stare at the endless, glimmering fjord. 

People  _ live  _ here. 

I’ve never been all that into nature—can’t exactly be an animal-lover, being what I am—but it’s breathtaking.

(I’m still admiring it as I snag a few squirrels and drain them.) (Food with a view.)

I drive for another hour before arriving in Undredal just as the wind picks up and the snow starts coming down in flurries. The town is unassuming, but charming nonetheless. A single winding road leads past a sparse display of colourful houses. A river rushes to my right, and the ground is dusted with snow. It looks like a little postcard—quaint.

But then I reach the café (the  _ only _ café), a building painted an inviting robin’s-egg blue, and my heart stops.

The first reason: the fjord glimmers endlessly behind the town, sheer cliffsides a brilliant display of majesty, dwarfing the wooden buildings. 

The second reason: stepping out of the café’s main doors, shaking the snow from his hair, is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.

  


* * *

**  
**

**Simon**

There’s a car outside.

There’s almost  _ never  _ a car here.

And a fucking BMW, at that.

I pull on my coat and push the front doors open. The car rolls to a stop right in front of the café, in one of the parking spots along the water.

I can only see the man’s back at first when he gets out of the car—followed by one long leg, then the other. He’s wearing one of those posh twat coats that everyone in London owns—the woolen ones, with tails. His hair is dark and curls softly around the nape of his neck. 

He brushes snow off his shoulders, then turns around.

He freezes and stares at me for longer than is polite.

But that’s okay; I’m staring, too.

  


* * *

**  
**

**Baz**

This has to be the café (there’s only  _ one _ café), but this is definitely not Ebb.

He looks like a fucking Disney character. Like I walked into Frozen 2 and he’s one of those boys who’s obsessed with reindeer. (I think I’ve been spending too much time with my siblings.) 

But he  _ does— _ he’s wearing a blue-and-white Scandinavian jumper (because of course he is) and an unzipped grey coat overtop that makes him look like a marshmallow. (A handsome, rugged kind of marshmallow.)

I take a step closer, shivering, and I can make out his face—all earnest eyes, freckles everywhere, dotted with moles. He shakes his hair again, and his snow-dusted bronze curls bounce enticingly.

“Hey!” he calls, through a new flurry of snow.

I walk a bit more quickly, ducking into the awning of the café. Mystery man is standing far too close to me; close enough that I can smell his blood.

It’s unusually warm and sweet. It feels rich, like buttered popcorn and bacon and cinnamon rolls, somehow all at once. I stare at the warm flush creeping up his cheeks and clench my jaw to force my fangs away.

Brimming below the surface. Delicious—

_ Fuck.  _

(I shouldn’t  _ want  _ this.) (It’s wrong, so very wrong.)

I make myself look him in the eyes. 

(I’m a monster.) (And I shouldn’t be standing this close, where his blood is beckoning to me so fiercely.)

“Hello,” I say, hoping to Chomsky he knows English. “I’m Baz Pitch. I’m here looking for someone named Ebb Petty.”

He smiles and extends his hand; I take it, and it’s big and calloused and  _ warm.  _ Almost too warm for comfort. “Nice to meet you, Baz,” he says. “Welcome to Undredal.”

_ Oh. _

He’s  _ English. _

(It’s not a strong accent, but it’s undeniably there.) (Northern, from the sounds of it.)

Eight snakes and a  _ dragon. _

His shake is firm and confident, and as he squeezes my hand, I feel a tug. Something filling up the air like fog, though nothing I can see. Something pressing into my senses, green and sticky. 

Magic.

_ Could he be…? _

“Ebb owns this café. I can introduce you when she gets in,” he continues, holding open the door for me. I enter gratefully into the warmth, unbuttoning my coat as I go. “Can I get you a coffee or cocoa or something?”

I look around the café—it’s heart-achingly cosy, all wooden panels and perfect Nordic design. It’s lit with candles everywhere and trimmed with green and white Christmas decorations that haven’t been taken down yet. The gorgeous man ushers me to a squashy armchair right by the roaring fireplace. 

“Hot cocoa would be wonderful,” I say.

He sheds his coat, tossing it up onto a hook, and starts puttering about in the kitchen. By the time he returns with two mugs topped with mountains of cream, I’m warm to my core. (I’m also too close to the fire—but it’s one of my habits, flirting with death.)

He settles down across from me and hands me my cocoa. I can’t even look at him directly; it’s like looking into the sun. (He makes my heart speed up to a normal person’s rate—it’s embarrassing.)

“I should mention it’s made with goat’s milk,” he says. “Hope that’s alright, it’s all I had in the back. But hey, it’s fresh from this morning.”

I stare at the hot chocolate. (I’ve never had  _ goat’s milk  _ hot chocolate.) (I’ve never had goat’s milk, period.) (But at least the scent overpowers his blood.)

“Go on, try it.”

He’s smirking at me, crookedly, like I’m someone he’s known all his life. (Like I’ve known him all  _ my  _ life.) It makes me want to reach out and tug his mouth to the middle. I try to school my features to something neutral, but I’m afraid I just look constipated. I focus on holding my fangs at bay and take a tentative sip—it’s good, so I give him a nod—and he grins again.

“So,” he says, sitting back, “Baz. You’re not from around here, are you?”

I shake my head. “I’m from London.”

“Long way,” he comments. “Ebb’s from East London, but spent most of her time at—” He catches himself. “I mean, in, Watford.”

“My aunt Fiona went to school with her,” I say pointedly.  _ “At _ Watford. My mother gave Ebb her old job.”

His eyes widen. “Right. So you’re– you’re a mage, then.”

He looks nervous. Apprehensive. 

It’s only one half of the story.

(Only one of the reasons he should be nervous.)

“Yes,” I answer.

(It’s half the truth.)

He swallows and looks at his hands, then finally nods. “And– and Fiona’s your aunt?”

“She is.” 

_ How does he know about Fiona? _

“Ebb talks about her a lot,” he says, “them being exes and all.”

I choke on my cocoa. “What?!”

He goes red, his smile fading. “Shit. Did you not know? Did I just like,  _ out _ your aunt—”

I cough, accidentally snorting chocolate up my nose. “No, it’s fine.” I cough again, regaining control over my trachea, and stare into my mug. “I’ve seen pictures of them from their Watford days, but she never really elaborated.”

He seems to cheer up at that. “Well, you can ask Ebb all about it,” he says. “She loves telling stories about her school days. And Odin knows  _ I’ve  _ heard them enough times.”

_ Who is he? _

_ (And why does he feel so familiar?) _

Ebb’s son? Just a random local boy who looks like he should be starring in a horribly cheesy yet utterly heartwarming Christmas rom-com called  _ Love in Norway? _

I can feel his magic. I’ve never felt it this strongly—magic is everywhere at Watford, infused in everything, but this is different. It’s rising off his skin. I can sense it like blood. (It’s  _ intermingling _ with his blood, in a strange and lovely way.)

“You’re a mage,” I say. It’s not a question.

He hesitates for a long, long moment. Sizing me up with pouchy blue eyes and a frown. 

He doesn’t answer; it’s suspicious as hell. But if he really  _ is _ nervous… maybe he knows. (About me.) 

Or maybe he has a secret of his own.

_ Could it be…? _

_ It can’t be. _

I make a show of relaxing in my chair, hoping to put him at ease. (I don’t think it works.) “I can sense your magic,” I offer. “It’s strong.”

He bristles. 

(Something’s off.) (Something’s suspicious.)

And you’re English?” I continue. “But… you never went to Watford. I’d have met you there if you did.”

“What’re you, a journalist?” he asks.

I laugh. “Snakes alive,  _ no.” _

He stares at me for another minute, and I feel my seams coming apart under his gaze. There’s something about him—something that makes me want to tell him everything. Something that feels known, and safe, despite it all.

“Yeah,” he finally says, and it’s more of an exhale than a word. He looks resigned. “I mean, I am a mage. But I grew up here. I think I was supposed to go to Watford, but when I was eleven, Ebb—” He cuts off abruptly, as if realising he’s said too much. “—um, adopted me. And we moved here.”

I’m starting to form an idea of what Ebb’s big secret is, and it’s putting a massive pit in the centre of my stomach.

But it can’t be—

He  _ can’t _ be… 

In the isolated fjordland of Norway, of all fucking places—

“It’s a long story,” he says. He eyes me warily for a moment, then turns to the hearth. The fire’s dying down, the wood blackened and shrivelled. He stands up and bends forward to pick up another few logs—I try and fail not to stare at his arse for a beat too long—and throws them onto the fire. 

“I’m sure it is,” I murmur, almost to myself.

He settles back into his chair. When he picks up his hot chocolate, it begins to spontaneously bubble. He jumps and sets it down gingerly. “Mm. Too hot.”

“Your hands…?”

He gives a short, uncomfortable laugh. “My magic. It kind of does what it wants.”

_ Does it go off?  _

_ Does it cause rifts in the Magickal atmosphere? _

(It’s so improbable.) (So improbable that… it might just be.)

He changes the subject abruptly. “So what brings you here, anyway? Besides looking for Ebb, I mean. Hope you’re not with the Coven or anything…”

“I am  _ definitely  _ not with the Coven.”

He frowns. “That’s what someone with the Coven would say.”

“Do you even know what the Coven is?”

His frown deepens. “I’m serious.”

_ What is the truth? _

Why  _ am  _ I here?

I’d prepared an answer for questions like this—an answer that isn’t  _ I’m a vampire and I’m trying not to drain the population of Great Britain _ —but somehow when looking into this man’s intense blue eyes, it’s harder to lie. Especially when his blood is nearly irresistible; it feels like it’s tugging the words right out of me.

“I’m actually hoping to move out of London,” I say. “Maybe… maybe here.”

“Why  _ here?” _

(Because there’s magic here.) (Because my aunt said so.) (Because  _ you’re _ here, with your gravitational pull.)

“I was looking for somewhere quiet, but that still has magic.”

I don’t think he believes me; his lips twitch like he’s trying not to scowl again. “Posh bloke like you… You want to move  _ here?  _ We don’t get Amazon Prime one-day, you know. And the weather gets a lot worse than this.”

“Fiona made a compelling argument. She said… that there were mages here.”

He does scowl, this time, and studies me. 

So I study him back. 

Crowley, he’s beautiful. He looks like a winter dream. A lock of curly hair falls into his eyes, and the sight makes my stomach drop.

He looks at me like he can see right through me. 

Or like he  _ wants _ to.

“Well, there are mages,” he finally says. “Undredal used to be a Magickal settlement, actually, back in the 17th century or so. Just a few families, mind, it’s always been this small.”

“How many people live here now?”

He shrugs. “Hundred or so.”

That’s smaller than Watford. This town is miniscule. There aren’t even street directions—what would they be?  _ Make a left at the seventh cluster of goats, then drive down the main road—I mean, the only road— _

“About a third are mages, I reckon,” he continues. “Maybe half.”

“Half?!”

_ Fifty mages. Here.  _

A small bell above the door tinkles, and he glances up to somewhere behind me. “That’d be Ebb. Hiya, Ebb!” he calls, waving.

He stands, picks up our empty mugs, and moves to return to the kitchen.

“Wait,” I say.

He stops and looks back. “Yeah?”

“You never told me your name.”

He grins at me, his beautiful eyes crinkling in the corners. It lights up his whole face. “Simon,” he says. “Simon Snow.”

_ Simon Snow. _

The Chosen One.

The Greatest Mage.

Here, in the middle of fucking nowhere, Norway.

_ Fuck. _

“Simon Snow,” I repeat, shell-shocked.

“Cheers,” he says, before turning around and strolling to the back like he didn’t just send my world spinning upside down.

  


  


  



	3. Chosen One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was only one fjord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the wonderful [NineMagicks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NineMagicks/pseuds/NineMagicks) for beta reading, and for the perfect chapter summary. 😂 ❤️

**Simon**

When I said something strange might happen today, I meant something within the  _ normal _ realm of strange. Like maybe a big herd of wild reindeer would come through, or we’d see the  _ nordlys…  _

Not this.

Not a  _ mage _ showing up—a Watford mage, no less!—who looks like he belongs on the cover of fucking Vogue, not out here in the fjord country. 

We have nothing but goats and trees and pretty views (and damn good  _ boller, _ courtesy of me). He seems like someone who’s used to luxury, and unless you count a dip in the freezing water a spa treatment, there’s next to none of that here.

That’s not the point. The point is that—well, troll’s toes, a  _ mage!  _

Baz Pitch.

Ebb never even mentioned that Fiona had a nephew. But I guess I should’ve put two and two together—Watford’s old headmistress, before The Mage, was Natasha Pitch. Fiona’s older sister; Baz’s mum.

So he’s not just any mage, either. He’s one of the Old Magickal Families, the ones steeped in tradition and what Ebb likes to call “utter drivel.” (But then, she calls most news from the World of Mages drivel at this point.)

He’s got a magickal legacy. And he’s powerful; I could feel it. His magic was searing hot, like mine. (Ebb’s is cold, like a robust blizzard.) 

And now he’s sat out in the café looking so out of place in his posh coat it’s almost funny. He looks almost evil, pointed at the edges, like a penny-opera villain. Raven-black hair with a wicked widow’s peak and startlingly harsh grey eyes.

He’s bloody gorgeous. 

I just don’t get it. Why would someone like  _ him _ want to move here?

And… fuck. I told him who I was. It’s been so long since we truly had to hide. Has he heard of me? Do they study me in school? Is there still a nursery rhyme about me?

If he tells anyone…

I don’t want to think about what happens if he tells anyone.

I gather some  _ geitost _ and butter, a hunk of sourdough, and some tea for Ebb. I glance out to where they’re sitting and steel myself. 

(He’s just an unreasonably hot mystery mage. Nothing to be nervous about…) 

Ebb beams at me when I reappear with the food in hand. “Simon! Sit with us, will ya? Not like anyone’s coming in,” she chuckles.

I drag over another armchair and sit, then start layering butter and cheese onto a slice of bread. 

“I was just telling Baz about how I knew his mum,” Ebb says. Her eyes are soft, half-hidden by her thatch of blond hair. She turns back to him. “I always had more power than sense, Fiona could tell you that. Mistress Pitch was the one who took me in—let me stay at Watford—and told me I didn’t have to worry about it.”

Baz’s eyebrows twitch. “She did?” 

He’s lounging in his chair like he thinks he’s a prince, long legs elegantly crossed. He’s also sitting too close to the fire—I almost want to reach out and drag him away. The occasional popping spark lands far too near his hair for comfort.

Ebb nods. “She said to let it go. That just because I had power, didn’t mean I had to fight in the war… didn’t mean anything about what I could do with my life.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think my family would agree with that, nowadays.”

Power is  _ everything,  _ in the World of Mages. That’s why it would be so dangerous for Ebb and I to be found… 

Because we could change it all. End the stalemate between the Mage and the Old Families. 

They’d never let us be. That’s what Ebb says, at least. She says the Mage looks at everyone like they’re a soldier and the Old Families will use anyone and any methods to get what they want.

If you’re as powerful as we are, a quiet life like this isn’t ever an option.

“Maybe not,” Ebb tells Baz. “Looking back, I think she worried about  _ me _ causing trouble with my power… Nicky and Fi and I were always up to no good in school.” She sighs, nostalgic, then takes a long sip of tea. “In the end, though, it was those same words that knocked some sense into me, when I heard about Simon.”

I don’t think even  _ I’ve _ heard this part before. I drop my bread and sit up straighter, with a wary glance in Baz’s direction. “What do you mean?”

Ebb cups her mug in both hands. As cosy as she looks in her ragged jumper and woolly hat, her blue eyes are ablaze. “I had a lot of faith in Mistress Pitch. Owed her a lot. Maybe even my life, after Nicky passed…”

Nicodemus is Ebb’s twin brother. She talks about him a lot, even though it always ends in tears. He’s not dead—well, he joined up with the vampires, so by some accounts I guess he is—but he was stricken from the Book, which apparently is just as bad as death, for a mage. Maybe even worse.

(Ebb thinks that might happen to her, if we went back.)

The magickal creatures I’ve met here seem nice enough, but there are dark ones in England who just want to see the World of Mages burn. Baz’s aunt Fiona’s entire  _ job _ is being a vampire hunter… 

I try to move along the conversation before Ebb dissolves into the inevitable tears. “And then what?”

“Then she died,” Baz fills in quietly. 

“Right.” Ebb nods heavily. “I wasn’t thinking about politics, when I did it. Didn’t think about the fact she’d not have wanted the Mage to have… Simon. I just thought of when I was young and scared and her  _ conviction _ that I not be used… for whichever side of the war. For anything. I think she’d have been horrified at the Chosen One nonsense.”

I’ve heard the stories. Read all the letters from Fiona about the world we left behind.

Still… I try not to think about it too much. Who I am—the power I have. What I was fated for. Because if I let it out, to the front of my mind, I can all-too-easily drown myself in  _ what ifs. _

Baz looks anguished. I guess I would be, too, if I were hearing stories about my dead mother. But the second he sees me glance over, he slams a neutral mask back into place.

“It’s how I honoured her memory, see,” Ebb continues, warmly. “Fiona likes to say I was the saviour of the World of Mages, in the end, because of what I did. Which I hate.” She chuckles. “But I s’pose you can’t always win. Anyway, I don’t regret it.”

“You shouldn’t,” Baz says. His gaze shifts to me, remarkably intense and stormy grey. I swallow too fast and nearly choke on my bread. “You did the right thing.”

She hums her agreement, taking another sip of tea.

“Unlike dating my aunt,” Baz continues, solemn expression unwavering. “That one was a  _ terrible _ life decision.”

Ebb bursts out laughing, spitting out her tea. She wipes herself off with her old scarf. “Snakes alive! You might be right. Maybe the bar was low to start.”

“Let me get this right,” I say. “You’ve just learnt that Ebb  _ kidnapped _ the Chosen One, but her dating Fiona is somehow worse than that?”

“Yes!” Baz insists. “My aunt is a menace.  _ She’s _ the real threat to the World of Mages.”

(I rarely see Ebb laugh this much. It’s catching.) (And Baz looks so uptight, on first sight—I didn’t expect him to be funny.)

Ebb chuckles, shaking her head. “Ach, I miss her.”

“Maybe I’ll persuade her to come visit,” Baz muses.

“I’ve tried,” Ebb says. “It’s about as easy as trimming a teenage goat’s hooves.”

Baz looks mildly alarmed at that.

I lean forward. “Does anyone else know where you are? Besides Fiona?”

“No.” Baz shakes his head. “I’m certain of it.”

“Not even your family?”

A flicker passes over his features. “No.”

_ What’s your secret, Baz Pitch? _

_ Why did you run? _

* * *

**Baz**

“You’ll need a place to bunk,” Ebb says.

I tear my eyes from Simon’s, half-reluctantly. I can feel him still staring at me.

Ebb may have lived in England most of her life, but she looks like she was made for this place. It’s not only her Nordic features, though those do help—she’s tall and broad, with icy blue eyes and a strong brow. What makes her look truly local is everything else. The way she sits like she has nowhere else to be, the dirt under her nails and on her face, the pile of layered jumpers she’s wearing. 

(I don’t know if that even  _ is _ a jumper. It’s white, or what used to be white, and ragged.) (It looks like a yarn monster.) (Like the Abominable Snowman, reborn as a woolly knit garment.)

(And the smell—goats?)

“Fiona said I might be able to stay with you,” I start, “but she also said not to get my hopes up about you actually having a spare bed that isn’t occupied by goats.”

Ebb shakes her head, smiling. “Well— you’re welcome at my place, Baz, but you should know I live in a barn.”

I blink. “Pardon?”

She waves a hand in the general direction of the town. “Yeah, the goat farm’s on the mountain there. ‘Bout ten minutes up the road.”

“A barn?” I repeat. “Here?” I glance outside, where snow is still falling; it’s almost a full white-out at this point. I can just barely make out the steep mountains that bracket the fjord; I can’t tell their edges from their shadows.

She shrugs in a gesture almost identical to Simon’s. “I keep it warm with magic.”

I turn to Simon. “Do you live there, too?”

He’s resumed eating like a starved urchin while Ebb and I spoke. “Used to,” he says, spewing cheesy crumbs on himself. He wipes his mouth roughly with the back of his hand. “I moved closer to the café when Leif retired and I started running the cheese tours. I live right around the corner, in the red house.” 

He points outside to what is presumably the red house. (It’s all blanketed in white, now; the window looks like someone threw a bed sheet over it.)

“There’s an idea,” Ebb says. “You could stay with Simon.”

I knew it was coming, but the suggestion still fills me with dread.

It’s fine that the missing Chosen One is here, and now the secret’s sitting heavily in my stomach. It’s fine that he’s ludicrously handsome and kind and somehow looks halfway attractive even when talking with his mouth open. It’s fine that his blood is like sweet browned butter and my fangs won’t stop itching, and that his magic feels alluring and familiar.

That’s all fine.

But living with him? 

That seems like too much.

Simon and I are staring at each other. His eyes are a boring sort of blue, really—not any special blue, not like the sky or the fjord—just blue. 

Ebb continues on, oblivious. “You’ve got a spare room, right, Simon?”

“Yeah,” he says absently, and then turns. “But—”

“I can stay somewhere else,” I cut in quickly, “if you don’t have space.”

It’s not that I don’t want to be close to him. 

It’s that I’m worried I won’t be able to control myself. Or that it’s for the wrong reasons. (Recently, my bloodlust and my prick seem to be getting their  _ wants _ conflated.) (It’s mighty inconvenient.)

“Listen, I promised Fi you were in good hands,” Ebb says. “And Simon’s the most capable of a warm welcome of anyone in this village.”

Simon swallows again, and I stare at the column of his throat. I can  _ hear _ his blood rushing, feel his heartbeat as if it’s my own. He shoves a hand in his curls and musses them until they’re a wreck. 

Sharing a home with him…

I think it might do me in.

“Yeah, alright,” he finally says. 

We end up driving my car all of ten seconds up the street after the snowstorm gradually subsides. (I hold my breath the whole way.) Simon’s house is perched right on the corner. It’s bright red, just as he said, with green trim, and the peaked roof is covered in a blanket of snow. 

It looks like something out of a travel magazine:  _ Experience Freezing Your Arse Off With a Handsome, Rugged Goatherd in Scenic Nowhere.  _

A set of stairs parallel to the front of the house leads to a tiny porch with green fencing and a narrow door to the inside. A small balcony juts out to the left from the upstairs.

It’s utterly charming.

“Wait here,” Simon tells me. He hops out of the car and crouches by his stairs, placing a hand to the snow. I watch as it melts, leaving the path free. He drags my overweight suitcase out of the boot and carries it up the stairs. He didn’t need to—I could probably lift the entire car if I tried—but Crowley, it’s hot to see how easily he lifts it. I follow, leather duffel in hand.

The door’s unlocked (I’m not surprised—who would he be protecting the house from, burglar goats?) and I tail Simon down a short hallway. He shoulders on a lightswitch, illuminating us in warm yellow. 

“You can put your coat and shoes there,” he says, nodding to a little bench with multicoloured hooks above it. It looks like something lifted from an IKEA catalogue.

The IKEA theme continues as we emerge into the rest of the house. He rolls my suitcase to a stop and clears his throat. “Well— welcome. Or as we say here,  _ velkommen.  _ Um, this is the living room—obviously—and the kitchen’s there.”

The living room features a squashy sofa laden with multicoloured knit blankets, a wooden coffee table topped with a precarious stack of candles, a large woodburning stove, and a TV. The space flows to the kitchen on our left, all light woods and colourful round knobs. A cosy breakfast nook is tucked in the back, right up against… 

The window.

I suppress a sharp intake of breath and cross the room.

The view is ethereal, a watercolour painting of blue and white. The snow spirals, kisses the choppy water of the fjord and dissolves softly. The cliff rises up in front of us, stretching into a haze of clouds, reaching to nowhere. 

“It’s gorgeous.”

Simon’s eyes look an intense blue in the pure light spilling from the window as he steps up next to me. He smiles, pressing fingers to the glass; it fogs under his touch. “The view’s my favourite thing about this place. But wait until you’re on the fjord. It’s like nothing else.”

_ “On _ the fjord?”

“Yeah, on a boat. In the summers, I mean. I’ve got a kayak under a tarp somewhere there.” He gestures vaguely below us. “And you can do tours as well, visit the towns alongside  _ Aurlandsfjord— _ that’s this one—and the next one over,  _ Nærøyfjord.  _ That one’s famous. UNESCO site or something.”

“Why?”

His lips quirk into a grin. “It’s just really, really narrow.”

I laugh. “That’s it?”

“It’s  _ pretty,”  _ he admits. “I mean, I’m biased towards ours. But, fun fact,  _ Nærøyfjord  _ was used as inspiration for—”

“—Arendelle from Frozen, I know,” I sigh. I knew the name seemed familiar. 

Simon blinks at me, as if reconciling this new discovery with my entire outward impression so far. Then he just shakes his head and laughs. “Guess you’ve done your research.”

I fold my arms. “I have four younger siblings.”

“Is that where you got your in-depth Disney education?”

“They forced it down my throat, more like.”

He laughs, then turns away from the window a moment later. “C’mon then, I’ll show you your room. I’ll have to make up the bed, but you can start unpacking for now…”

He takes my suitcase again, despite my weak protest, and hauls it up the wooden stairs. A small landing gives way to two bedroom doors, one straight ahead and one to the right.

He bumps open the first door and stands awkwardly in the middle of the room. It’s barren, except for furniture. “Right. This one’s yours. I’ll… let you get settled, then.”

I’m staring out the window again, at the snow flurries and the massive towering cliffs. I drop my duffel onto the chunky knit rug. 

_ Could I live here? _

_ Be happy here? _

And then my eyes catch on Simon Snow, flushed skin and floppy curls and hesitant smile. He’s shrugged his jacket off, down to just a grey t-shirt, and his arms are a dreamy, mole-dotted affair.

Magic and blood and the lost Chosen One, here.

_ That is, if I live through it. _

* * *

**Simon**

Baz’s door is still open when I return with sheets and blankets piled in my arms, but I knock with my elbow anyway. 

He looks up from where he’s unfolding a button-up shirt. There’s a whole pile sitting next to him on the naked bed, a rainbow mishmash like magicians’ ribbons. A lock of hair falls in his face, and he tucks it away in a delicate sort of gesture—it makes something ache in my throat.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

I mean, technically it was Ebb’s idea—but I agreed to it. And if it’s less than two hours in and I’m already this flustered…

I thought maybe it’d get better, with time. Ebb says time can smooth out every one of life’s wrinkles, and it’s especially true here.

But if normal problems are life’s little wrinkles, then Baz showing up here is a fucking rip in the fabric. He’s sitting cross-legged on the mattress in a half-unbuttoned shirt and stripey socks, and I don’t know any words to describe this feeling.

Like things are off-kilter. Like the steady rhythm of life has suddenly jolted into a staccato movement.

He sends my mind spiraling with one curious raise of his eyebrow.

I’m still not sure if he’s trustworthy, but he sure is attractive.

(And there’s no way he’s straight.) (No one with that many floral-patterned button-ups can be.) 

(Right?)

“Um, I, I brought your sheets,” I stutter out. 

_ Get it together. _

He’s already standing up, sparing me the inevitable bluster, thank Odin. He sweeps his shirts away, slinging them onto his arm.

His eyebrows fly up when he sees the three extra-thick blankets I’m holding. “You  _ do _ have heating here, right?”

“‘Course,” I laugh. “But still. It’s not like London—it’ll be freezing for another four months at least. And the power goes out almost every time there’s a storm.”

“And then what do you do?”

I shrug. “Light a fire. Here, let’s put the quilt on first.”

It’s one Ebb made, a patchwork of goat faces and mountain scenes. I apologise for the goats, then think better of it and say, “But you’ll learn to like them. You know we have five goats for every one person here?”

Baz smiles like he’s trying not to.

I pull another blanket over that one—a light grey knit with thick yarn that I made last winter—then haul the fluffy duvet on top of everything. I go get the pillows from the hall cupboard, and when I return, Baz is carefully hanging up his innumerable button-ups.

(Who wears a button-up to  _ travel?)  _ (It’s not even rumpled. Maybe he has those fancy wrinkle-free ones. He seems like the type.)

I can count ten shirts already, and he’s barely made a dent in his suitcase. 

He’s going to need a better coat, too. Or he could go full stereotypical Norwegian, and just layer ten wool jumpers on top of one another. (He’d look good in one of Ebb’s homemade jumpers—it’d soften him a bit.)

“How long are you planning to stay?” I ask, eyeing the full-size shampoo bottles in his suitcase.

“I’m… not sure,” he says. “A few weeks at least, if that’s all right.”

“That’s more than all right,” I say. “Make yourself at home.”

I’m rewarded with a hesitant smile. 

I rub at the back of my neck. “Um, once you’re done, you should come to the balcony.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder, at my room. “Snow looks like it’ll stop, and the sun’s setting soon.”

He looks surprised. “Already?”

I laugh. “Welcome to the north. The days are short this time of year.”

“Just my luck.”

“Just your luck,” I repeat, and he smiles again.

* * *

**Baz**

I knock on Simon Snow’s bedroom door, and he shouts, “Come on in!”

I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. 

There are plants  _ everywhere.  _ Green spilling out of every corner and every crevice. Bursts of life surrounding me, surrounding the bed draped with another goat-themed quilt, surrounding the numerous wool jumpers strewn about the floor.

It’s like walking into a forest. It smells earthy, intermingling with Simon’s own sweet, heady scent. 

He’s out on the balcony straight ahead, facing away from me. His broad shoulders are outlined in the pink light of dusk, his curls haloed in fading touches of gold. 

It’s tiny, but there’s room for another beside him. 

He turns and beckons me closer. “Come look.” I step gingerly through the room, trying to avoid treading on a stray root or bundle of leaves. “You should really put on a coat,” he says.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re shivering.”

It’s so small that we’re practically shoulder-to-shoulder. I find I don’t mind at all; Simon seems to carry a bubble of heat around himself.

“I’m fine,” I say again, and then look up to where he’s facing. 

The view takes my breath away.

The sun hovers at the horizon, peeking out from a blanket of clouds, sending shots of colours through the hazy sky. The fjord glimmers a misty purple, sunset light dancing across its waves. Before it all, the whole town seems stilled, as if in awe of the sight; the houses seem suddenly dull in comparison.

“Aleister fucking  _ Crowley,”  _ I swear under my breath.

“Who?”

I laugh. “It’s a curse. Well… it’s a name. He was a prominent occultist and writer, and thought himself the saviour of modern magic.” I hesitate before adding, “Many people thought he was the Chosen One. I’m sure  _ he  _ did, himself.”

Simon’s silent for a long moment. 

“Oh,” he says.

“He wasn’t.” I hesitate again. “But… you really are. Aren’t you.”

He looks ahead at the falling sun, and with his profile outlined in light like this, he looks nothing short of heroic. Nothing short of Chosen.

But he’s lost. (He’s  _ here.) _

“I was,” he says.


	4. Fiskesuppe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baz swears an oath. Simon makes some bad soup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two short chapters coming up! Big thanks as always to [NineMagicks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NineMagicks/pseuds/NineMagicks) for beta reading and [Mio](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/augustslaundry) for Norway-picking! ❤️

**Simon**

It’s strange that Baz knows. (Strange and a little terrifying.) Because  _ no one _ knows. 

We can’t be found. We can’t go back. We were fugitives once, but I think now it’s been long enough that we’re just… removed. 

We stepped out of time.

Baz is a visitor from my alternate timeline. The one where we all did what we were told; where we carried on like we were supposed to.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t seem quite real. Because he only represents what might have been.

And now he knows the truth.

“Everyone thinks you’re a myth,” he says. “A fairytale.”

“Good,” I say. “I heard there’s a song about me, too.”

He cracks a smile. “There is.”

“Sing it for me?”

“I’d rather not.”

I laugh. “It should stay that way. I mean, I should stay… you know, mythical.” I turn to him. “Really. You can’t tell anyone.”

Baz lifts that eyebrow again, sending my stomach spiraling. “I won’t tell.”

_ How do I know? _

“Baz… why are you really here?”

He looks regal in the dusk light, softened. There’s a magic here that touches everyone. “I told you already.”

“But you could move  _ anywhere.  _ Fiona knows it’s too important of a secret to share just like that,” I insist. “There’s got to be another reason. Something else.”

“There isn’t,” he says, tone clipped.

I know I’m doing that stubborn-glaring thing I always do, but I really have to know. There aren’t a lot of new faces up here; trust doesn’t come easily. And anyway, Baz is looking right back at me, his curious grey eyes holding my own, steadily. 

(He’s close.) (Almost  _ too _ close.)

He waits until the eye contact grows uncomfortable, then says, “Give me your hand.”

I do.

His hand is cold, even colder than I might’ve expected given the weather. He wraps long fingers around my knuckles, then slips a sleek birchwood wand out of his sleeve. 

“I won’t tell anyone, Snow,” Baz says. (No one’s ever called me  _ Snow.)  _ “I promise.” He taps his wand against our joined hands and utters a spell:  **_“An Englishman’s word is his bond!”_ **

It takes a second to catch, and then his magic sears through me like a flame. Like hot oil creeping down my throat and blooming in my lungs. I blink in surprise at the sensation; it’s not painful, just surprising.

It’s grittier than my own magic, more pointed and more precise. It’s sharp and sooty.

It sinks into my hand and lingers in my muscles, even when he pulls away.

Baz’s eyes hold a quiet conviction, almost a promise. Something tells me that we didn’t need to take this oath; he has his own reasons for not telling.

He has a secret, too.

But at least it means I’m safe here. I’m still safe.

* * *

**Baz**

Long (long) after the sun goes down, a knock sounds on my door. “Hey, are you hungry? I made  _ fiskesuppe.” _

I open the door to see Simon Snow wearing an oversized jumper and a shy smile. 

“You made what?”

“It’s a Norwegian coastal speciality, kind of like chowder? Been a while since I had guests, so, I thought…”

“That sounds wonderful,” I say. I’m lying through my teeth; I hate chowder. “Thank you for cooking.”

He laughs as we head down the stairs. “M’not much of a cook. But I’m better than Ebb, that’s for sure. She’s like a reindeer in a china shop when it comes to the kitchen.”

(I could swear the phrase was  _ bull  _ in a china shop…) 

“Doesn’t she make the goat cheese?” I ask.

“Nah, just raises the goats.” He plucks a ladle from a hook above the stove and carries the entire steaming pot to the table, where two bowls are already laid out on red place mats. “The Underdals have been making cheese here for ages—that’s Astrid’s family, you’ll meet them soon enough—and I was her dad’s apprentice for a bit, before we figured out I was better at baking. Go on, sit down.”

I sit. 

Simon bustles around in the kitchen, eventually producing a loaf of warm, crusty bread and a bottle of white wine. He pours us each a too-large glass before sitting down. 

“Help yourself,” he says, “and cheers.”

I clink my glass with his, maintaining eye contact. “Cheers to Undredal.”

Simon holds a straight face for a moment, then bursts into laughter.

“What is it?”

“Your pronunciation.  _ Undredal,”  _ he corrects, making everything pinched and swallowed and rounded, like in German. “You’ll get it eventually.”

“Undredal,” I attempt again, one hundred percent sure I’m getting it wrong.

He smiles at me. “Closer.”

Objectively, Simon’s  _ fiskesuppe _ probably isn’t horrible—earthy with a hint of salty cod—I just happen to hate it. He looks so proud of it, though, that I can’t bear to say anything. I drink far too much wine to cover the fact that I barely touch my soup.

(He takes a fourth helping.) (And he  _ slurps— _ it should be disgusting, but it’s horribly endearing.)

The bread is incredible—it’s a rustic, hearty loaf, with just a hint of tangy sourdough. It might actually be the best bread I’ve ever had. Better than any shop or bakery or restaurant I’ve ever been to, that’s for certain. I tell him so.

“I made it,” Simon says, casual as anything. I raise my eyebrows, and he adds, “I can teach you sometime. It’s not hard.”

“Yes, it is!” I insist. (I have  _ definitely _ had too much wine.) “I’ve seen Bake Off—there’s all the proofing, and the science, and the water temperature…”

Simon shrugs. “I swear, it’s more about intuition than anything. Or maybe it’s the water. Norwegian water is  _ amazing.” _

“I think it’s magic,” I declare.

He laughs. “I’d not even be surprised if it was, without my knowing.”

“Do you make this for the café?”

He nods. “I have a few special ones, to go with the cheeses. Like complimentary, you know?”

“Bread pairings,” I say.

“Exactly. Now  _ that’s  _ a science.”

“How’d you end up working at the café?”

Simon looks down and swirls his soup around. “Long story, actually. It was… a little rough when Ebb and I first moved. Because…” He blows out a deep breath. “Because of everything. You know.”

He’s silent for a moment, and I fill in the gaps.

_ Because you were running. _

_ Because you needed to get as far as you could from the world you knew. _

_ (The world where everyone knows your name, Simon Snow.) _

“I liked Ebb,” he finally goes on, “but I was terrified—I didn’t even know I was magickal, until she found me. And she’d never had a kid. She wanted to raise me somewhere that had magic, so I could learn, and we wouldn’t have to hide that part, at least.”

“Here,” I say.

“Right. Ebb knew some friends of family friends, something like that—turned out to be the Underdals,” Simon explains. “They’re a Magickal family, one of the oldest, I mean their last name is literally based on the town… or maybe the town is based on their name. And they owned the café. Ebb started supplying them with goat’s milk, and I worked there in the summers as a teenager. A few years ago, Leif was selling the café, so Ebb bought it.”

“Do… do the Normals in town know that you all are mages?”

Simon shrugs. “Probably. We all pretend they don’t, but I’m sure most of them have figured it out—some of them have even gotten married to mages.”

“Eight snakes, they  _ know?” _

He smiles curiously. “Everyone’s trustworthy, don’t worry.”

“Don’t  _ worry?!  _ Normals can’t know about magic! It’s– it’s wrong!”

Simon outright laughs at that. “It’s  _ fine,  _ Baz. Really. We’ve never had an issue. Like, who are they going to tell? The other five people in the town?”

He’s got a point.

Still.

Mages  _ marrying  _ Normals. I suppress a shudder.

“And if you’re planning to– to move here,” he says pointedly, “you’d best get used to it. Magic is just part of this town. It’s in the ground, in the air…” He waves a hand around. “The woods are full of elves, and the fjord has nixies.”

“What are you all  _ doing _ here?” I ask. “All you mages, I mean. You’re so far from everything. Hiding?”

Simon takes a long sip of his wine and sets the glass down with a muffled  _ clink _ on the soft wood of the table. “Not everyone is. They’re just living—they’ve always been here.”

“Don’t they want a Magickal education?” I demand. “Magickal society?”

“You’re passionate about this,” he remarks with a wry smile.

“My family’s a big proponent of education,” I say dryly. “But really– don’t any of them go to Watford? Or… is there a Norwegian magickal school?”

He shrugs again. “England’s the only place mages are really organised. They’re content here. They pass down useful family spells. A couple kids have gone to Watford, and they usually don’t come back—they stay in England, or go to uni in Bergen or Oslo.”

“How did you learn magic?” 

“From Ebb and the others in town. But I don’t use a lot of spells…”

“What do you mean?”

Simon studies me for a moment—back to that same suspicion he had in the café, and on the balcony earlier. I stop myself from squirming under his gaze.

“I don’t have a magickal artifact,” he finally says, carefully. 

“Why?”

“Long story. Well—” He seems to reconsider. “The short answer is, I’m an orphan. So I don’t have a family artifact. I’ve tried Ebb’s staff, but it didn’t work.”

“Magickal parents don’t give up their children, though,” I insist, even though I’m staring the evidence in the face. “Magic is… too valuable.”

“Maybe they died.” He doesn’t seem too bothered by the prospect. “In any case, Ebb’s the best parent I could ask for. And my magic’s fine, really—it’s not normal, but it’s  _ fine.” _

“What’s it like, then?”

He hesitates. “...Let me show you.” Simon picks up our bowls and crosses to the sink; I follow with the pot. He sets them down and turns to me. “Wanna see a trick?”

I raise an eyebrow. “A  _ magic _ trick?”

He snorts. “Yeah– sort of.” He lays one hand on the tap and one on the sponge, closing his eyes as if in meditation. Before I have time to figure out what the fuck is happening, the water turns on by itself and the sponge wriggles into the air.

I feel a tug on the pot in my hands. I think I imagined it.

“Let go,” he says.

I stare at him.

Simon huffs and takes the pot from me, then flings it unceremoniously toward the sink—it gets caught in the air, as if by some imaginary gravitational force. The dish soap soars up from its place and drizzles into the pot, the water runs steaming hot, and the sponge starts merrily scrubbing away.

It looks like something out of a fucking Harry Potter movie.

Simon grins smugly and walks back to the table, humming.

Finally I find my voice and say, “But… that’s impossible. There’s not a spell for that.”

He looks back at me. “Like I said—don’t need a spell.”

_ A man who makes the dishes do themselves.  _ (Can I marry him?)

It’s still difficult to comprehend how the mages relate to magic here. (How  _ Simon  _ relates to magic—how he uses it.)

All my life, I’ve been immersed in a world where it matters how good you are at magic. How many spells you know; what your class ranking is. How powerful you are. Who your family is.

Here, it seems nobody cares. My perfect wandwork and elocution mean nothing.

It’s jarring.

And it’s also refreshing. It’s a new beginning. A chance to start over.

I’ll take it.

* * *

**Simon**

Baz helps me finish tidying up, ever the polite guest. There’s still a little bit of wine left, so I carry the bottle with me into the living room.

I intend to introduce him to the best of Norwegian television tonight. It’s wonderful, or horrible, depending on how you look at it. “Slow TV” they call it, which has apparently become a buzz word recently.

I like the one where you watch a loaf of bread rise. They don’t even time-lapse it—it’s fantastic.

The first channel I see follows along with a train journey through the mountains. After they’re done with the train, they’ll probably switch to a boat on the fjords. I brighten when I find a rerun of  _ Piip Show— _ an NRK special where they showed a live feed of birds flitting in and out of a feeder decorated to look like a tiny coffee shop. Baz might like that one. 

But when I turn around to beckon him over from the kitchen, he’s already gone.


End file.
